AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ABOUT RECENT TRENDS IN CONSUMER INFORMATION SEARCH – A STUDY BASED ON DIGITALIZED INDIA

Abstract

Understanding the consumer information search process plays a pivotal role in marketing decision making such as product planning, product development, and on its entire promotional strategies. As internet is concerned, this interactive medium opens up possibilities of consumer’s on-line in-formation search to a new experience. The Web represents an extremely efficient medium for ac-cessing, organizing, and communicating information. As such, the Internet covers various facets of communication technologies ranging from the written and spoken word to visual images. More and more businesses today are discovering the Internet as a fundamental communication tool for conducting daily business. Large and small companies are embracing the Web in order to com-municate with current and potential customers abroad with the same cost and ease as in their home countries. The buying and selling over this digital media is called electronic commerce, or e-commerce. E-commerce is not just a single technology but also a combination of technologies, applications, processes, business strategies, and practices, necessary to do business electronically. A challenge faced by all marketers in this modern digitalized era is how to influence the purchase behavior of consumers in favor of the product or service they offer. Before making a decision to make a purchase, consumers are involved in making information searches about the product. These searches include analyzing the official web sites of companies, getting involved in the dis-cussion groups on the internet, following the discussions or communication with the others via e-mails. For influencing consumers for product purchase there is a great need to give correct infor-mation to consumers on time. This paper is a significant step forward to understand recent trends in Consumer information search in the modern digitalized India.